


waiting beneath the surface

by gayleb



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki is Death, Reincarnation, also he supports the avengers in their plan to kill thanos, kind of?, thats basically the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayleb/pseuds/gayleb
Summary: Loki finds his way into hell, his neck having been snapped by Thanos. He expects to find eternal torture, but what he finds instead is an empty throne, waiting for someone to take it.





	waiting beneath the surface

“You will never be a god.”

Loki felt the hand around his neck tighten, the air leave his lungs. His legs kicked wildly out beneath him, in a final attempt to save his life. He knew it was useless, but watching his brother now, his brother who had already seen him die twice, Loki had to at least attempt escape. No matter how willing he was to accept his own death, even if he found himself wishing for it at times, he knew Thor did not feel the same. 

Thor met Loki’s gaze for a moment, his eye full of pain and terror and all the words he wasn’t able to say (I love you brother, I forgive you, please don’t die), before Loki turned to look at Thanos. He couldn’t bare look at Thor for too long. Thor wasn’t supposed to look like that. He wasn’t supposed to look that scared. Thor looked more terrified than he had ever been before. Seeing Thor like that, that terrified Loki more than anything before.

Looking at Thanos now, Loki could see what he’d never noticed before. His eyes held no mercy, no forgiveness, not even anger. Just disinterest and disgust. He watched Loki as he choked, watched the ship burning, the bodies laying motionless around them, and he felt nothing. Thanos didn’t care about the consequences of his actions. He couldn’t. He lost his mind along with everything he had to live for, and he’d lost his grip on reality. He didn’t care about what happened, or what it took to get what he wanted, he just did it.

Loki wanted to say more, maybe to taunt Thanos, maybe to make him kill him faster, he wasn’t really sure. He just wanted to make Thanos feel something other than his insane lust for death, other than the disassociation he felt while tearing people’s worlds apart. He wanted to tell him how the one daughter he had actually cared about would be disgusted at him right now (Yes he had payed attention, during those years he spent on that desolate wasteland, he watched and listened to what happened around him. And he never forgot) but he couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe. He could feel his throat burning where the Titan’s hand laid, and if he could scream, he would. 

The hand around his neck tightened, and Loki felt something in his neck snap, his vision darkening at a rapid pace. His body hit the floor of the ship with a thud, his head rolling to the side. The last thing Loki saw of this life was his brother, screaming silently in pain, forced to watch the last piece of his family, his home, die before his very eyes.

Loki awoke to the sound of silence. He couldn’t even hear himself breathing. With a laugh, he thought, No need to breathe when you’re dead. He looked up at the ceiling, and saw large spikes of rock hanging down, something dripping off of them, pooling on the ground beneath. It looked like blood, but Loki didn’t exactly trust his eyes at the moment.

He sat up, the sudden movement causing the world to move in and out of focus for a moment, his head pounding. He raised a hand to his neck, and felt the tender, bruised skin where the Titan’s hand had been but moments before. It still hurt to touch, even when dead. That was just his luck though, wasn’t it?

The rock beneath him was pitch black, dirt covering most of the ground. After closing his eyes for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning, he pushed himself to his feet, taking in his surroundings. All around him was darkness, his vision reaching to about 10 feet on all sides of him. There was nothing he could see, just rock, and the dark.

What did you expect? You killed the goddess of death, the queen of Hel, what did you think happened to her kingdom?

Loki called a small flame to his hand, wincing slightly at even the smallest use of his magic, his small store of energy quickly draining. In the back of his mind, he was surprised his magic still responded to his call, but he didn’t have time to think about that now. He just had to keep going, maybe, if he was lucky, he could find a way out of this wretched place, and he could help Thor in his fight against Thanos.

Looking around with the light in his hand, he could see the walls now. They were the same black rock as the ground, but the walls were covered in scratches. Each scratch was a tally mark, and tally marks covered the walls. The scratches looked as if they had been made with fingernails, dried blood stained the rock around each marking. Just looking at it set Loki on edge.

He held the light in front of him as he walked, but there was really nothing to see. Just endless stone, endless tally marks, endless stories of the dead, that would never reach the light of day. He hated the silence, not even his footsteps made noise.

He walked for what felt like hours, but in reality couldn’t have been more than one. As he walked, in front of him he saw a staircase appear, leading up, too far up for him to see what laid at the top. The steps appeared to be made of a smooth black stone, the railings made of bone. Without hesitation, Loki started climbing the stairs, keeping the hand with the light held out in front of him.

As he walked up the stairs, the air grew colder, the walls started to close in, and the silence started to eat away at him. Once he finally reached the top of the stairs, Loki saw, a throne, perched on a platform of gray rock. The seat was forged out of faces twisted in pain. Distantly, Loki realized, it was made of souls. People stuck in torment, twisted into a cruel throne. Hela’s throne.

Only she wasn’t there. She was dead, because of Loki. And Thor, and the Valkyrie, and the beast, Banner, but none of them were dead. Loki was dead, and standing in front of the empty throne of Hel.

He climbed the final stairs, stepping onto the platform, a few feet in front of the throne. Slowly he reached his hand out, barely brushing the throne with his fingertips. The moment he touched it, he saw everything. All of the torture the souls were condemned to, all of the pain, all of the suffering. He heard their screams, their cries for help. Names of people they knew. People who would never come for them.

It reminded him of himself, suffering for years of torment at the Titan’s hand. He pulled his hand away, stumbling backwards. Staring at the throne, the empty throne of Hel, sitting there in front of him, waiting for someone to claim it, possibilities raced through his mind. Was he brought here specifically to claim the throne? Was this his purpose?

Would this give him the revenge he had dreamed of, every night?

He thought of Thanos, of the torture he went through because of him. The pain he faced, all because of him. Sitting on that throne, taking the power, gave Loki the upper hand. When Thanos found his way into Hel, Loki would be waiting for him. He wouldn’t be used by anyone anymore.

Schooling his expression, even though no one around to see, Loki strode forward, taking a seat on the throne. The moment he sat down, he felt an unfamiliar power rush through him. This magic felt wrong, twisted. If he weren’t already dead, he would say it was killing him.

He could feel all the souls that resided down here. He could hear their screams, and feel their pain, and he could control it all. He could control their fears, take their worst nightmares, and make it their reality. He held that power in his hands, all he had to do was think something, and it was so.

He sat there, watching everyone suffering through their tortures, unable to escape, never given a moment of peace. He sat there, thinking of what it was like while being shaped by Thanos. The pain he went through, the isolation. He sat there, and he planned.

  


Loki saw her soul as she died. He saw her fall, her body hit the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, and her soul left her body, heading for Valhalla. She had technically died fighting for her life, died a hero.

Unlike you, the voice in his head said bitterly, but he ignored that, reaching out and pulling her soul down to Hel. She didn’t deserve to be down there, it was true, but he needed to talk to her. She didn’t deserve to die at all. And Loki was going to do all he could to right that.

Looking at her form, crouched on the ground in front of him, he spoke.

“Gamora.”

She flinched, uncurling, staring up at him from her position on the ground. She looked around, pushing the hair from her face before speaking, “Where am I?”

“Hel, I’m afraid,” he said, looking down at her. She had pushed herself up onto her knees, bracing herself on her hands. They were trembling beneath her, Loki wasn’t sure if it was because they couldn’t support her weight, or because she was still in a state of shock.

She took another look around, her eyes taking in every detail, before finally settling on him. His hair was in tangles, a wild mess on his head, pieces falling down in a curtain to cover his eyes. He seemed to be wearing a dark green tunic, almost black, and when she looked closely, she could see different faces in the design of the cloth. His black pants were tucked into his boots, which reached to just below his knees. His skin was deathly pale, emanating a sickening glow in the pale green light of the torches on the wall. There were large, dark circles beneath his sunken eyes, and his eyes seemed to see everything at once. To top off the attire, a long cloak dark as night rested on his shoulders, flowing down to the floor behind him. It swallowed his figure whole, but somehow made him seem to stand taller, it gave him an air of power, and status. His whole look screamed ‘death’.

“So why am I here? I thought only the bad went here, and not to be self centered, but I don’t really think I’ve been all that bad.”

“Oh trust me, you don’t. You’re supposed to be up in Valhalla, enjoying your afterlife, finally resting. I brought you here before you could.”

She narrowed her eyes, distrust evident on her face, “You lost me already. You hardly know me, other than when I helped break you. I’m not being tortured right now, so I’m assuming you want to talk to me. What about?”

Loki walked in a slow circle around her, her eyes following his every move, “I watched you die. He actually seemed to care. I didn’t think it was possible for Him to care about anything other than death, but He proved me wrong.

“You’ve always been his favourite. Ever since I was first taken by him, he always loved you the most, even if you didn’t care for his love, he gave it to you nonetheless, in his own, deluded ways. You are his greatest treasure. That being said, you are also his greatest weakness. I brought you down here for one thing, to give you a second chance.”

She raised an eyebrow, quirking her head, “Why me? He just killed me to get what he wanted, I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”

“If anyone can keep him distracted, it will be you. And, he thinks you’re dead, he won’t expect you to be able to talk to him. If you can distract him, tell him it isn’t to late, he might listen,” Loki saw Gamora open her mouth to protest, but he cut her off before she could.

“I know he won’t abandon his plan, he’s too far gone for that. But if you can distract him, tell him what he wants to hear, you can provide an opening for the other heroes. They can attack while his focus is on you.”

Her face was wrought in concentration, her finger tapping absentmindedly on the ground. “Why are you doing this? You’re dead. You have nothing to gain, so what’s your motive?”

“On the contrary, I have everything to gain. Think about it,” He paused, crouching down in front of her, locking eyes, “I mean, I am the ruler of Hel. Where are you expecting Thanos to go when he dies? Valhalla? No, he will be delivered to my feet, and this time, he will be at my mercy. He will be victim to any tribulation I choose, and he will have no means of escape.

“He will suffer through my torture, knowing that one of his pawns has come back. He will come to death in hopes of finding his love, of finding peace at last, but instead he shall find me, and he shall find a fate much worse than death.”

Looking in his eyes, Gamora could see the emotions behind his words. She could see the anger that powered him, the need for revenge, burning in his eyes, but behind all of that, she could see all of the fear, and the pain, of a broken man. The terror of someone barely holding themselves together. She could see herself in those eyes.

Thanos had hurt them both, some of the ways he had done that were the same, some of them were very different. But they all hurt just the same. That’s how she knew, he needed this, and in a way, so did she. With that thought playing in her mind, she pushed herself to her feet, brushing the dust off of her pants, before looking at Loki, determination set in her eyes.

“Alright, that seems fair to me,” She watched him stand up, his eyes never leaving hers, “What do you have to do to send me back?”

He took a step back, gesturing with his hand, “It is a simple spell really, all I need do is to transfer your soul from this realm to the other. It shall be as if waking from a deep sleep. You will, of course, remember being dead, but I trust you will, to put it lightly, survive.”

She rolled her eyes, taking a few steps, “So, do we have to do it right now? What happens if I stay down here for a bit? Will I be fine?”

Loki shook his head, a breath of air escaping him that may have been a laugh, “I am afraid not. When you stay to long in Hel, you worst starts to come out. Your nightmares start to trap you. Your mind keeps you hostage. Once you’re down here for too long, there’s no way out. That’s why we have to act fast. Only monsters belong down here, and there’s only one of those standing in this room.”

Looking closer, Gamora could see a faint flicker across his skin, every few seconds. His complexion shifted, from its deathly white to a sky blue. Watching the shift, she could see faint ridges appear on whatever skin was visible. Looking at his face, she saw small horns protruding from his skull at his hairline, almost covered by his messy hair. Looking behind the hair in front of his face, she could see his eyes, changing every few seconds from their natural, dull green, to pure, blood red.

Her eyes met his, and in that moment, she didn’t see a monster, she just saw a tired man, driven with determination. The only thing keeping him going is the fire, burning behind his eyes, Her eyes met his as she watched the green wisps of magic engulf her, watching the world slowly melt away.

Before the final trace of the afterlife left her, she whispered into the room, both to herself and to Loki, “I’ll come back for you.”

  


Loki waited.

And waited.

There was nothing else he could do. He kept Hel running smoothly, he watched as the guilty souls were tortured. He ‘welcomed’ each new soul into Hel. None of them were Thanos, so still, he waited.

He wondered, some days, about what Gamora had told the others. Had she mentioned him at all when telling them of her time in the afterlife? Did Thor know he had taken over Hela’s reign? Did she tell them she had been to Hel at all?

Each new question left him with one less answer. Each day that passed he grew more mad, stuck in the Hel he had built for himself.

He had been waiting, like every other day since he’d sent Gamora back, for The Titan’s soul to find its way into his realm, when he felt it. He could feel the death. A sense of dread washed over him, and just as he had done with Gamora, he stole the souls of the heroes of Midgard, bringing them down to his realm before they could pass to Valhalla, fearing the news they would bring him.

He stood from his throne, waiting, his stomach churning nervously in anticipation. As he stood, his fingers picking at his hand unconsciously, the peoples souls appeared in bright green flares on the ground in front of him. He saw their bodies take shape, lying motionless on the floor. There were so many. Too many for them to have won. If he weren’t already dead, his heart would have stopped.

Looking down at all the people, he saw that he recognized almost none of them. He wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not. None of them were Thor, which sent a wave of relief coursing through him.

He saw their bodies begin to stir, and waited in anticipation for them to fully regain awareness. They all woke up at around the same time, looking up, eyes hazy, blinking away the last of the sleep from their eyes.

“Can I just be the first to say,” A dark skinned man with buzzed hair started, looking around with wide eyes, “What the fuck?”

The one with long, tangled brown hair and a metal arm glanced at him, rolling his eyes once he saw him, “Oh great, you’re here, so we must be in hell.”

Loki chose that moment to step in, “You are, actually.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, all eyes went to him. He heard one of them cry ‘Oh shit!’ and the people closest to him moved backwards as fast as they could, with the way the magic he used to bring them here made them feel.

“What do you mean, we are? This is hell?” The man who Loki remembers from his most recent time on Earth as Stephen Strange. Behind Strange, a small man, no older than 20, with unkempt light brown hair whispered “We’re actually in hell? That is so cool!”

Seeing him down here gave Loki a small burst of satisfaction, but it quickly burnt out, upon remembering the reason of his being here. Glaring at the mortal, (did he even count as a mortal, now that he was dead?) Loki replied, “Is that not what I just implied?”

Before the (second hand at most) sorcerer could argue with some snarky response, Fury cut him off. Fury, Loki remembered very well, and judging by the look he was giving Loki, he still hated the god’s guts.

“Alright, ignoring the history you two obviously have and nobody else cares about,” Fury said, narrowing his eye in Loki’s direction, he raised his hands in mock surrender, feigning a look of hurt. Fury ignored him and kept speaking, “Why are you here? I mean, I get why you’re in hell and everything, trying to invade a planet and all, let me rephrase my question. Why are we here?”

“You’re all here simply because I brought you here.” Before they could all finish their statements of protest, which would only slow this conversation down more, Loki held his hand up to silence them, continuing on with his explanation. As he spoke, he met each of their gaze’s, “I brought you here, because I saw your souls heading to Valhalla. I knew you lost, so I wanted you all to explain to me, what exactly happened with Thanos. Did he win?”

He felt a slight twinge of satisfaction at their reactions. The slight widening of their eyes, the opening of their mouths, it truly was a sight to behold. Then, the girl he had never seen spoke up, her voice thickly accented, he could detect a strong trace of magical energy around her, it was different from his own, but no less powerful, “How did you bring us down here?”

He paused at that. It wasn’t the question he was expecting to hear, but it certainly was interesting. In the briefest terms he could think of, he described to her how he brought them all into his realm, “I simply transported your souls from the sort of, ‘in between’ as one might call it, space between Hel and Valhalla. As the ruler of Hel, I have enough strength to transport souls who have not yet made it to Valhalla down into my realm. I could recognize your souls by your auras, so I merely brought you all down here, and waited for you to awaken.”

She looked fascinated by his answer, and it seemed as if she might have asked another question, but the man who had spoken first earlier, the one who looked like a nicer Fury spoke first, “You know about Thanos?”

Loki couldn’t hold back a breath of laughter, “Yes, I ‘know Thanos’. I’m here because of him, and I was really expecting his soul to be the next I would introduce personally to Hel. Thank you ever so much for proving me wrong.”

Strange just rolled his eyes, but the girl actually had concern showing on her face, which only made the spark of respect he had for her grow. A man with blonde hair and a red leather jacket spoke next in a sarcastic tone of voice, “What do you want from us? To lecture us for losing? Yeah, thanks mom. We know we failed, we don’t need a would-be-ruler telling us that.”

The man with the metal arm snickered, and Loki sighed, a little dramatically at that, before fixing a glare at the man, “Well, I was planning on asking about how he defeated you, and then I was going to send you all back to Midgard, where you would be able to slay the Titan, and restore the balance.”

The silence that fell after that was satisfying for Loki, to say the least. Everybody was taking in the new information, and it was deathly silent, until the woman quietly spoke, “You can bring people back from the dead?” The teenage boy from earlier quietly said, looking up at Loki, “Cool!”

He gave her a thin smile, motioning at the realm with his hands, “Well, ruling Hel does come with some perks. It takes a great deal of energy, but I can send souls of the dead back to the realm of the living. That’s what I’m planning on doing with you lot.”

The third dark skinned man who spoke with an accent Loki had never heard before, and held himself with an air of formality, spoke next, “But why are you choosing to help us? Don’t you hate us?” A few other people followed with a ‘yeah!’

“I am helping you, because you are my last hope. I am waiting here, for the day I can get my revenge on the man who caused me years of endless pain, and torment. I want to return the favour. I am going to help you, because to defeat the Titan, all of you must be alive and willing to continue fighting. Do I make myself clear?”

The girl was the first the stand up, watching him as she did. She took a few cautious steps forward, before stopping a few feet in front of him, her hand outstretched before her. She spoke in a strong voice, the words echoing throughout the cavern, “I speak only for myself, but I accept your offer. I will go back to Earth, and I will fight with everything I have.”

Meeting her eyes, Loki offered only a nod in return, his hands picking nervously at each other behind his back. Slowly, the rest of the fallen Avengers got up behind her, standing next to the girl. Strange was the first to agree with her, “I’ll fight,” the others chiming in soon after, “so will I,” “me too.”

The only person who had to agree was Fury, and he was currently staring at Loki with a narrowed eye. Finally, after a moment of consideration he said, “Well, I guess you can’t kill us, and we’re already in hell, so why the fuck not? I’m in, I’ll let the psychopath resurrect me.”

Loki smiled, “Wise choice. This may feel a bit odd, so please try not to move. It will make it easier to make sure you end up in the correct place,” he said, weaving his hands in front of him, a green light emanating from them, forming the spell.

The girl seemed entranced by the magic now surrounding her. She watched as it engulfed her, not only physically, but spiritually to. Loki could feel her tentatively reaching out to the spell with magic of her own, careful as to not mess anything up.

Strange started to speak out in protest, but before the words could leave his mouth, they were teleported out of the realm, and back to Midgard, ready to face the Titan again.

  


The Titan lifted his head, his eyes searching through the darkness surrounding him, waiting to be welcomed to the land of the dead. He closed his eyes, smiling into the abyss, “Lady Death, will you come to greet me?”

Opening his eyes, he started ahead, a figure slowly approaching out of the shadows. He saw their cloak blowing behind them with every step they took, he could feel the power pressing down on him as they drew near.

“Lady Death, did you enjoy the gifts that I sent you?”

The figure stopped at the edge of the light, slowly circling Thanos. “No, Titan,” came the icy tone, “I despised them.”

Thanos’ brow furrowed in confusion, “You are not Lady Death,” he mused. The figure stepped from the shadows, the light hitting each angle on his face, and he most certainly was not Lady Death, but thanos still recognized him. He stepped closer, tilting thanos’ face upwards with a skeletal hand, “I most certainly am not, dear Thanos. I am something much, much worse.”

He took a step away, pushing Thanos back as he went. Looking up at the man who had once been under his control, Thanos asked, “What happened to my Lady?” he couldn’t quite keep the fear out of his voice.

“Oh, you mean Hela?” Loki said, his eyes cold, circling Thanos like a bird circling its prey, “She’s dead. It’s rather ironic, don’t you think? The goddess of death, dying, but I was actually one of the people who helped kill her. It was surprisingly easy. And, well, when I woke up down here, I saw Hel was lacking a ruler, and I just had to step in.”

His eyes widened in shock, staring up at the god standing before him. It couldn’t be true, his Lady Death couldn’t be dead. She was Death, Death wasn’t supposed to be killed. And not by him. Someone so insignificant, so worthless. Someone Thanos had never thought capable of more than taking orders.

Looking up at the god in this new light, his power (stolen power earned power) he watched the magic coursing through him, channeling through his veins, as if it belonged there. It disgusted Thanos.

Glaring up at the man, Thanos spat, “You don’t know what to do now. You’ve built this throne up on a platform of lies and stolen power, you’re breaking apart at the seams, you’ll never succeed in getting whatever revenger you’ve dreamed up. And whatever you’ve planned, it won’t help fill in that empty feeling inside. You may have left the void, but the void hasn’t truly left you.”

Before he could say another word, Loki’s hand was wrapped around Thanos’ neck, hard enough to leave a bruise. His eyes were full of rage, his voice venomous with every word he spoke, “I know exactly what to do, and how to do it. I’ve had years, to think about what I could do, to make you hurt in every, way, imaginable. What do you think I was doing, in those moments when my mind was my own, back on Sanctuary? I was thinking, and I was listening,” his grip tightened, he pulled Thanos’ face closer, “I’ve already been broken beyond repair, you made quite sure of that. That just makes me all the more dangerous. You don’t know the half of what I’m capable of, and here you are, powerless and unable to defy me.”

Thanos was thrown back down, sliding a few feet back. He watched as magic surrounded him, covered every inch of his skin. It felt like fire, every part of him touched by the magic burned, as if he were being swallowed by Hel’s fires themselves.

As the darkness overcame Thanos, and he watched Loki’s face slowly fade into the shadows, he felt something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

For the first time since he could remember, Thanos felt fear.


End file.
